Nova Ukraine Film Night: Awoken by War, working title (final title: Flowers Beyond the Dark)
By Jordi Rozenman The full-length documentary Awoken by War, working title (final: Flowers Beyond the Dark) stands out for many reasons from a filmmaking perspective, including its proximity to war in both timing and location, and its female, Kyiv-based director Iryna Pravylo. But the film would have been outstanding and singular regardless of any technical factors, because its content is outstanding and singular: Ukrainian resilience in the face of the massive, unprovoked attack by russian forces four times larger than their own military. Iryna Pravylo explains, "in Spring of 2022, right after the region of Kyiv was deoccupied, my collaborator Oleksandr Mesheryakov and I set out to document the evidence of russian crimes. Despite the danger of large areas being mined, we worked in Bucha, Irpin, Hostomel, Horenka, Borodyanka, and Babynci. We knew that the focus had to be on humans and their personal stories." Two years on, we cannot forget that the absolutely astounding effectiveness of Ukrainian resilience is due to those personal stories. As co-producer of the film Yulia Zimmermann puts it, "As the interest and empathy for Ukrainian people and russia’s war on Ukraine continue to decrease, it’s very important to seek new compelling ways to engage the international community. Cinema, especially documentaries, is a powerful source of truth and inspiration to care." We should pause a moment during 2024 to recall our shock upon hearing that russia had invaded - but we should take the next moment to remember our astonishment that Ukraine did not fall almost immediately. Absurdly, we take Ukraine's resilience for granted now because two years have passed and the indomitable country is still fighting: this is nothing short of both a miracle and a tragedy, and Awoken by War reminds us of both sides of that coin. As time passes and we dangerously begin to accept this state of war as just another piece of the current geopolitical puzzle, we need any reminders we can get both that the human cost of the invasion is brutal and devastating, and that not a single one of us imagined that Ukraine could still be actively fighting for its freedom for this long against the size and might of the russian military. What we couldn't have possibly counted on - what putin didn't count on - is the courage, the capability, and the sheer will of the Ukrainian people to protect things worth protecting. The inspiration the world has felt watching the Ukrainian response unfold cannot be forgotten. The documentary’s title is apt. Ukraine, awoken in the worst of ways in 2022, has not been able to shut its eyes since; the world was awoken for several months, maybe even longer, but we are falling back asleep. Zimmermann points out that "people won’t watch the news, but they will go see films." It's a necessity to do so, to avoid the so-called normalization of such a catastrophe, one that puts every democracy in the world at risk. In 2024 any ground war is also a war of misinformation, more than ever before, and one way to fight that kind of attack is by honoring the lives of the innocent people living through this horror every day. "We had to shoot quickly," Pravylo notes, "to capture all the raw and honest emotions of the people who returned to deoccupied Kyiv."
